Remember when a graphics card cost $1,999? Adorable. Best Buy is currently listing Nvidia's RTX 5090 at $7,494.99 — and Kotaku's coverage of the price is blowing up because that's the retail listing, not a scalper's DM. The last time the card was in stock, it was $6,899. The trajectory is going the wrong way, fast.
This grid of RTX 5090 listings at $6,299–$6,899 now looks like a museum exhibit. Best Buy's single card is sitting at $7,494.99.
The real horror story is on resale sites: third-party sellers are asking as much as $9,500 for a card Nvidia launched at $1,999. That's a Mac Studio, a decent used car, or one very fast way to render rectangles.
The fastest gaming GPU on the planet — if you can find the money and the GPU in the same room.
Why? AI data centers are buying gaming cards in bulk, so shelves are empty and prices are unmoored. The card you wanted for your PC is now "scarce robot fuel" — gamers are the afterthought in Nvidia's earnings call.
More and more 5090s are ending up in AI rigs like this instead of under anyone's monitor.
▶ Watch the 60-second breakdown:
Source: Kotaku